Apr 12, 2016 Climate Change is Real!, Ramblings and Musings
Climate Change is Real: Day 14 of My Part-Shared, Part-Lone Vigil
©April 12th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
Today was an extremely long day. Finally, I sit down and try to recapture my vigil from this morning.
Yes, I went out today, after a gap of two or three week-days to face with some degree of resignation a wildly changing weather and an unvaryingly boring traffic flow. Having already had my coffee and a good night’s sleep, I was somewhat awake. Of course, there’s no such thing as being fully awake at 8:20 in the morning, despite the fact that had I been teaching at school (as I’ve done for seventeen years until last June), I would have been well into teaching my first class period of the day, and would have been scattering good mornings! and cheerful smiles in all directions (except if I’d pulled an all-nighter).
As it was, I had to face no one but the traffic (which, being the vast, faceless entity that it is, as it snakes through the roads, cares not one whit) and my husband (but he’s pretty forgiving).
The signs were already in place, and Warren greeted me with a beautiful composition in Raga Desi, which he had been singing. I’d forgotten how transcendentally beautiful this raga is, and it displaced Raga Adana (which is beautiful, as well), to which I’d been listening on my way to the vigil. I joined Warren in singing the teentaal bandish in Desi, Pritam prita lagi naa bhulaana, which our Guruji had composed. Filled with sweetness and a sense of pleading, it’s laced with the unspoken fear that the singer’s beloved might/would forget the singer. Forgetting a beloved may be sad, but even worse, is the fear that I suspect many of us share – the fear of an eventual loss of memory.
I have forgotten much in my life – names, people I’ve met, movies I’ve seen, places I’ve been, stories I’ve read, and things that happened to me – sometimes, I think this is a form of self-protection. At other times, I think the mind can hold only this much, and no more. Yet, at the same time, I cannot ever forget the hurt I’ve caused someone. I cannot forget that I’ve wasted time. I cannot forget that I’ve been wasteful of resources and of whatever talent I’ve possessed.
This, I will not forget: That our time on Earth is short, that the harm we’ve done it is lasting, and the good we can still do can prevent the worst. As we fight to save our planet, we need more songs, more stories, more spoken-word poetry to keep our collective memories aloft.
.
And we need to remember this Earth, our Mother.
Warren left after we overlapped for fifteen or twenty minutes. I stayed on, and sang along with Guruji’s voice in my ear-buds, as he took me through “Naiya More Bhayi Purani,” an absolutely heart-breaking composition, which translates thus:
Naiya More Bhayi Purani (My boat has become ancient)
Khewata sada matawaro (The boatman, aka God, is always intoxicated, whimsical)
Aughata ghaata mein (At the difficult,inaccessible steps leading to the river)
Sujhata nahin (I don’t understand what’s happening)
Aana padi majhadhar (I have arrived at the eddies of the midstream)
Our teacher explains the whole thing as “rupak” or metaphor (India is the original land of metaphorical thinking).
Yes, and of course, we can apply this song to all of us as we age, and to our planet, as she ages. Many don’t understand what’s happening, and those of us who do, do so in a frightened, boat-whirling-in-midstream manner. A couple of days ago, I read about how melting ice sheets are changing the earth’s axis. It did not make me very hopeful about the future. Sorry.
On a happier note, I LOVE revisiting our time with our teacher through these recordings we have of our lessons. Even his speaking voice takes on the notes of the particular raga which he’s singing as he explains the poetry of the bandishes he teaches us. He is musical to the very core of his being. To me, he’s not dead – he’s always here, his voice still magical.
There were no real interactions with anyone today. A few waves, a honk, a thumbs-up … that was all. We were, all of us, wrapped in our own internal worlds.
The clouds were grey, the wind gusted from time to time, and the sun moved slowly through my forty minutes out there. The sun-saturated air beyond the pearly grey sky made my eyes hurt, and I squinted, unseeing, into the slow crawl of cars, as I sang. No stories suggested themselves to me. A horde of schoolchildren waved from a schoolbus that trundled by. I waved back.
Soon, it was time to go. I saw a beautiful woodpecker fly off into the woods behind me, as I picked up the signs, and allowed the wind to push me this way and that as I crossed the bridge. Below me, the cars crawled in one direction (towards Boston), and flashed by in the other direction (northwards).
I was glad to go home. My daffodils, crocuses, and a narcissus and hyacinth plant were perking up, greeting the morning. All those dire warnings of a catastrophic future resembled science fiction at that moment.
For here, now, was beauty.
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Tags: #ClimateChangeisReal, #ClimateVigil, #Music-making and bearing witness, #Pandit Shreeram G. Devasthali, #Raga Desi
Mar 23, 2016 Climate Change is Real!, Daily Life
Climate Change is Real: Day 5 of my Lone Vigil
©March 23rd, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
(Woman with Sign, standing in for Man with Sign)
So, with Raga Bhatiyar humming around my ears like a drunken bee, I awoke just before the alarm. This is not my favorite trend, being by nature a night-owl, but I’m proud of myself, despite myself.
Freshly brewed coffee (finally!) in travel mug? Check.
Let Holly out, and get her back in? Check?
Holly’s food and water replenished?
Ear-buds in place? Check.i-Pod charged up? Check.
Gas turned off? Check.
Driver’s License in pocket, in case the Man decides to randomly check my ID (one never knows, especially if one is brown)? Check.
Phone charged and ready to go? Check.
Doors locked? Check.
Wakefulness? Um … let’s move on, shall we?
Muted lipstick and eye-black for those who like such things? Check.
This was my attire: Green scarf, red turtleneck, dark-blue sweatpants, sneakers, mustard-yellow buttonless cardigan-thing, olive-gray-green brimmed felt hat (mine, but which Warren appropriated, and I don’t mind, but I’m taking it back for now!)? Check! Motley isn’t too far behind at the rate at which I’m going. I think I’ll go for wildly clashing colors tomorrow.
And still, after all this efficiency, I was there twenty-three minutes past 7:30 a.m. Sigh. I envy men, I really do – well, at least my man, at any rate. He is punctual and ready, always. I think that somewhere, subconsciously, I’m still resenting anything that resembles my old school schedule, which was too absurdly early for any thinking human being. That is my excuse, and I’m sticking to it!
Well, I got there, set up my post, and spent my one hour, singing “Barani na jaaye,” a beautiful composition in Raga Bhatiyar that our Guruji taught us in January of 1994, when we spent a year in India studying with him for hours on end, almost every single day, except when we were sick, or on the rare occasions when he was unable to make it to Muktangan to teach. This composition addresses a woman, saying that it is impossible to describe her; all similes fail when the singer is struck by the beauty of her effulgent moon-visage. On top of all this, she is so beautifully ornamented, and perfumed with different perfumes, that he loses his senses, or loses himself when he sees her face and her beautiful form and gait.
Barani na jaye
Mose upama tehare
Mukha chandra ki
Barani na ja …Taiso hi attara,
Aragaja lagave,
Sudha bisaratha, mukha dekha,
Chaal madhamaata ki
Such was the beauty of this song, that I lost myself in it, and paid no attention at all to the commuters for some minutes, then tried to re-focus myself.
Right away, I saw many smiles from women today, many nods and waves, many thumbs-up (immediately followed by one SOLE thumbs-down by a grumpy guy – I waved cheerfully at him, waving him away). One man with a Vermont license plate, and Bernie 2016 bumper sticker, waved cheerfully, rolled down his window, and said something like, “… more than one way to make a change,” and drove on.
The coffee was fragrant and heavenly after a couple of days of tea at that hour (which is truly hellish for a morning-coffee person like me), and I was happy despite four hours of sleep. The sky was muted, and the wind blew on and off, threatening to displace Warren’s sign. It was odd to see how different the sky was on three consecutive days. Snowy-white on Monday, bright, cheerful blue on Monday, and opalescent gray today (I happen to like this pearly-gray, pink-imbued color). It was cold, but not bitterly so. I was glove-less, and grateful for it.
Guruji’s voice as usual made mine come alive. I’m so happy to sing again! I went to sleep with the sound of it in my head, and awoke with it, and have been singing on and off all day today. As usual, there were taans and aakars, and gamaks, and sargams, and Warren’s and my voice blended in the recording as we followed our teacher’s guidance.
As the hour unrolled, the same old, blue pickup car-truck drove by, and the cheerful, young, bearded man from Friday waved to me, and took another picture for In League Press. [He posted on their FB page that I was out there again today – I knew, because he had tagged me (I was a little worried at being so named in an online journal, but realized that since I had given him my name last week, and had shared Warren’s Man with Sign page with them, it was inevitable that he would mention me.)]
I heard birdsong, but didn’t see birds today — no sudden uprush of geese, or wild chasing of cardinals, or flashes of bluejay. Grateful that we still have birds, and that they still sing.
No chick tracts today, thank goodness! There’s only so much I can take about the Last Day of Judgement and harsh pronouncements utterly lacking in grace or love about the wrath of God, and so on.
However, there’s a little disappointment one feels at having no opposition (or, is it just me? I don’t like arguing online, but I don’t mind a nice, crunchy debate in real life.) – no mouthy Tea-partiers? No Climate Deniers? No mean-spirited citizenry out to make my life a living hell?
Wait! I’m kidding! I like the waves, the smiles, the nods. The occasional thumbs-downs I can take. I’m an adult. I am woman. Hear me roar!
These are the signs I saw on passing vans:
EnviroTech Breathe Easier (Yup, we need one for our whole planet)
Belmont Springs Water Delivery (Wish they could just deliver some water springs without the plastic)Plymouth Rock.com Assurance (what kind of assurance?)
First Response Fire Response (These guys are heroes)
Fences Unlimited (That’s almost an oxymoron, isn’t it?)
Stump Grinding – All Aspects of Tree Service (Stump-grinding sounds obscene)
I could turn ANY of these, and ALL of these into poems. I won’t try now, however.
The hour ended. I picked up my effects, and turned my face homeward. There is a strange freedom in doing this. At such times, I think, perhaps, I don’t need anything. We need so little, truly. Just food, shelter, some intellectual stimulation, lots and lots of music, basic clothing, and lots of love and friendship. All else is immaterial.
Thank you, Warren, for starting this!
It’s been a LONG day, and I’ve been really tired. Sorry to write this post so late in the day. Still, it’s not quite 11:00 p.m., so it’s still today. Will try to do this earlier tomorrow.
Sorry for the rambling post, and thanks for reading, friends!
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Tags: #ClimateChangeisReal, #ClimateVigil, #Pandit Shreeram G. Devasthali, #Raga Bhatiyar, #Warren Senders